Speaking My Mind is about: Tobi, who is a middle aged, no, oh all right a slightly over the hill woman with all the imperfections that go with that, and this concerns her daily life's perceptions and experiences.

My thoughts today and always;
are more correct now in these present days of my existence …

All people have to do what is
best for them in any certain time or situation in their histories of their
lives and many may need to do what is best for them according to how they feel
or even by what the doctors or pharmacists say to do.

And so here I sit, once again,
in the midst of my treatments with after already ten days worth of being home-bound and starting to get cabin fever and trying hard to remember what the rest
of the world looks like; not in a box or by only two too other familiar
conceptual three dimensional beings of Hubby and Skipper faces to provide me
with solace! Oh and of course I didn’t forget those several hours with Number
One’s visit this past Monday, but way too short!

Yes, I am on day two, of
another step down six pack of steroids and so I had questions, wouldn’t you?

Oh... who to ask my need to know
concerns; the net, a doctor, a pharmacist?

So me being me I asked the
net first with its FDA info on my drug of my doctor's choice, this time, a step down pack of
Medrol and sure enough it had enough info to scare the most stoic chronic
illness sufferer!

Yes, STEROIDS can be BAD for
you!

But they can be helpful too
for almost as many ailments as they heal as they can cause, huh?

It’s the transition from off
of them, like any strong medication there are specific things one should be
aware of when planning to feel better someday, when all is said and done,
hopefully DUE to THESE SCARY STEROIDS!

When can I intermingle with
the world?

When can I exercise again?

Having an autoimmune disease
like Multiple Sclerosis has all in itself compromised your immune system and
steroids have a way of making that more of an issue...

I spoke to my insurance
company, yes, the 'devil one' in my opinion, but they have a 24/7 RN available, but I wanted
their pharmacist, no can do I was told! I seem to recall that is wrong, but I couldn't argue when I needed a favor, right?

My local pharmacist one is a lovely
person that unfortunately has a heavy accent so when I can’t understand her
that in my mind is not at all helpful, true?

And so this RN Cheryl
at the insurance company suggested I call anyone of the local chain pharmacies, but I thought I
shouldn’t do that since I did not utilize their stores. She made me realized
that that did not matter and that they would help me anyway, and so I called
Hubby’s local one, right in our grocery at Publix and I was pleased to know
that they didn’t even ask me my name when I posed my questions, and so I was
anonymous.

The tech came back after I
imagine she spoke to the pharmacist and said that I should wait three to four daysafter I stop my medications.

My question was simple and
concise, “I have MS and have been put on a second course of step down steroids, Medrol,
and I was wondering when the danger from being exposed to others with viruses
or whatever would be over and when I could go back to exercising due to the
possible injuries during the use of the medication and when would that be safe to go
back to?”

So there you go…three to four days after the last day...

Now the nurse and I did
discuss my loss of the few weeks by then and my concern about having to start
over with reps, etc, and that was more of the logic that I myself have spewed
regularly and was trained to teach as well, listen to your body, whew!

Now for a report on if this
STUFF is helping me at all at this time, well a little bit, but not that much yet; I hope
that is all it is… My eyes have been an issue all this time as well as my
shoulders and lower back inflammation, but my hand feels a bit better I must admit…

I am still sore in my back
and shoulders and my cough is still with me, but not worse, my eyes are scaring
me the most due to my perception I miss more things placing them and my peripheral vision
seems no better and it might even be a little worse…I have become a lot more
clumsy with finding my mouth and reaching for things, messy, you see and I use
the term, see, with much consideration
and that to me is scary!

Oh well, I am making this
more spooky than last night’s blog, sorry for that.

On that somewhat not quite
sure note, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good
night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those
overages with you know who and we will too!